Christmas

  Now that it's February, I guess I need to hurry up and get my Christmas post over with so I can move on with my new year. :)

I was trying really hard to be ready for Christmas earlier than Christmas Eve so we could enjoy the night without stress, and that didn't happen, but it wasn't as stressful as past years.

Surprisingly, my children went to bed really easily and fell asleep quickly. We were able to get everything ready and head to bed.

We hung up wrapping paper in hopes of keeping children out the next morning, but that didn't happen. They didn't rip it, they just snuck in and luckily they only went through their own stockings.

Just as I was getting ready to go to bed, I went to lock up and saw a Christmas miracle in the making. Snow.

That miracle didn't disappoint, we woke up to a yard full of white fluffy snow! (Which to this point has pretty much been our only good snow storm this winter ... bizarre).

The kids were so excited, I don't know if Ethan could have waited another minute.

He had even gone in early and started organizing everything in his own way.

Jade was a lot more fun this year, I love watching her figure things out!

 
Santa did good this year:

Jade continued on with her gift sitting and was really funny all morning.

Being married to Mart = homemade boxes. Ha ha!

Ethan has reached the age where clothes are HUGE disappointment ... and it just so happened that the first several gifts he opened (aside from his Santa gift) all turned out to be clothes.

And last but not least, we plan to have a lot of family adventures this year! To help with that, two new kid bows and arrows! (These go with my new bow from my birthday, Mart's new shotgun, some new fishing poles ... and hopefully to come, a canoe!)

Mart has been wanting to get a shotgun for a very long time! Thanks to a handful of side jobs before Christmas, we were able to get him one the day after Thanksgiving.

Later that night, after a not so fun moment of family drama (thank you Ty), we headed to Grandma's house to spend some time with her.

Without fail, every single time my boys go to visit Grandma, they come home with a business card or two. Thanks to Grandma, they each received 500 of their very own for Christmas. Yay for us ... ha ha.

 
Nanan made each of them a knitted dinosaur and the kids thought they were great. 

Grandma apparently thought Jade needed a stuffed pig that was as big as she is, and it was very cute.

The kids must have had a good Christmas this year, because for a couple of days after, they were all very entertained.

Jade as convinced that her new doll stroller was actually for her.

Ethan loved putting together his new snap circuit set from Grandma and making the propeller fly

And Lincoln was so excited he finally got his own skateboard and had to try it out.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

For as many years as I can remember, my mom has always hosted a Christmas Eve party. It generally is the same; fry anything anybody wants and a bunch of snacks. Some years we have changed it up and done soup in bread bowls, etc. but majority of the family there likes what they call "fried goodness". Honestly, it's not my favorite and I either eat next to nothing or go home feeling really sick. We did the usual, fries, onion rings, mushrooms, chicken, shrimp, and pickles.

There weren't as many people as usual, so it was a lot more calm, which was very nice. My kids were absolutely dying when I brought in gifts for them to open before we went home. They asked me every five minutes if it was time to open them.  Ethan finally hit the age where gifts containing clothes are really boring. Ha ha. On Christmas Sunday he was so excited to open his gift, and so beyond disappointed that it happened to be church clothes. When we walked in with the gifts, he told me he hoped they weren't more clothes.

I didn't take a lot of photos, but my kids were so excited it was finally Christmas Eve. The spent the night running around, eating, talking, watching movies, playing with Kira, drinking IBC rootbeer out of glass bottles, tracking Santa online and begging to open their presents.

Lincoln has the cutest smile when he'll actually flash it for me. :) 

Jade spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day thinking she was a hen hatching her eggs, and she sat on every gift that was near her little body.

Ethan was disappointed that I gave him more clothes, but was excited that he got new slippers. And then even more excited when he realized I picked him Skylanders jammies. It made it not so bad.

My kids wiggle way too much for crisp clear pictures, so I have just had to learn to live with the fact that all of my pictures with them in it will be blurry until they are teenagers and have better control of holding still. Ha.

Shortly after opening jammies we headed home to get three excited munchkins in bed!

Merry Christmas Eve!